A STEP BACK: Instead of relaxing after winning the World Series in 2009, Yankees manager Joe Girardi became even more tense in 2010. Photo: Getty Images

Joe Girardi and the Yankees have no place else to turn, so they will return to each other.

Sometime in the next week, I suspect, Girardi will re-up for something in the neighborhood of three years at $10 million.

What alternative does Girardi have? The Cubs job disappeared. Tony La Russa stayed in St. Louis, though you have to wonder if the Cardinals would have wanted the 2.0 version of La Russa — tense and paranoid — to succeed him.

Dodgers GM Ned Colletti likes Girardi, but Los Angeles moved quickly to have Don Mattingly follow Joe Torre, which has a coincidental touch since Girardi beat out Mattingly to replace Torre with the Yankees.

But the Yanks are really in the same box. The options beyond Girardi are not great. The Yanks cannot be sure that a respected coach such as Tony Pena, Rob Thomson or Kevin Long could handle all that comes with overseeing a $200 million-plus payroll. The Yanks are not reuniting with Torre or Lou Piniella, and while GM Brian Cashman admires Bobby Valentine, it is hard to imagine the Yanks turning in that direction.

So Girardi needs the Yanks, and the Yanks need Girardi. Which is fine. Girardi is a very good manager. Prepared. Smart. A student of the game.

But Girardi strangely regressed in 2010, returning to the uptight, paranoid version familiar from his 2008 Yankees debut season. A championship last year should have — in theory — made Girardi more secure and more relaxed. Instead, as this season progressed, Girardi’s patience and serenity vanished like the dependability of his rotation; a disappearing act noticed both in the front office and clubhouse.

Did his team play tight in the ALCS because the manager was tight? That is unknowable. But with his clenched teeth, edgy pacing and obsession with his black binder, Girardi hardly projected calm leadership to his troops.

Girardi is the kind of technically proficient manager that tends to scoff at Texas skipper Ron Washington’s lack of strategic sophistication. But mastering the Xs and Os of baseball does not give a manager the same tactical advantages coaches get in the NFL or NBA. What is missed by the technocrats is that Washington’s human bond with his players gets the Rangers to play passionately for him — which is the gift that gives from April through October.

I’m sure Girardi loves to manage. But you could not tell that watching him daily. Thus players end up, at best, respecting him rather than having a human connection that would foster something greater.

So as part of the coming negotiations, the Yanks must re-enforce to Girardi the significance of modifying a personality that too often strays to the robotic or — worse — dishonest. This worked previously. After Girardi’s uncomfortable 2008 campaign, Brian Cashman gave his manager articles about Tom Coughlin’s alterations to become more personable, open and patient.

Girardi took the advice seriously and softened a few hard edges. He did not evolve into Mr. Yucks, but his players noticed and his Yankees followed Coughlin’s Giants into The Canyon of Heroes.

Which made the return to Revoltin’ Joe starker. There was a time when George Steinbrenner spoke for the Yanks and players did not hide in the off-limits lounges of a new stadium. Now the Yankees manager is by far the daily spokesman for the team. So if he is deceitful or anxiety-laced, that becomes the face and the pulse of the team.

But the bigger picture for Girardi is: Is this really the reputation he wants? He is a championship manager best known for that black binder and a misleading nature. When you treat every bit of information about your team — including the innocuous — as if it should be CIA classified, then your joyless persona begins to corrupt clubhouse atmosphere, as well.

He is seen now as becoming tenser — and less clear thinking — under stress. So, for example, he winds up honoring a pre-series calculus over trusting what his eyes see at that moment (think David Robertson vs. Nelson Cruz) or relying on big-picture thinking that works in June over the every-pitch-can-eliminate-you cauldron of October (think A.J. Burnett vs. Bengie Molina).

Since the Yanks plan on remaining the biggest team in sports, they need a more candid spokesman. Since they plan on playing every October, they need a less stressed strategist.